Professional Development Blog

Thursday, 22 May 2014

Observation was made of
the National Simultaneous Storytime event that was run by the TAFE
Sydney St George College Library that was run for the children
attending the childcare centre attached to the college, Kameruka
Cottage. For this event the staff first read the book to the children
using the powerpoint provided by ALIA who organised the event. This
was followed by the staff reading the actual book with the children.
The staff then sang Ten Grey Elephants Balancing with the children
while the children balanced on the string that had been set up on the
floor. Part of the story was about the boy making a cardboard house
for the elephants to live in, therefore as part of the activity a
cardboard elephant house was made for the children to play in and
pretend to be elephants. The final thing that the children did before
returning to the centre was to have a look at the artworks that were
displayed in the library that had been done by the children about
elephants balancing on a piece of string. While this technically not
a book award the aim of the National Simultaneous Storytime is to
draw attention to notable books and to encourage wide reading in all
ages. (National Similtaneous Storytime, n.d.). The repetition of the
story through it being read twice as well as reinforcement through
the singing and other activities that were carried out assists to
reinforce the idea of pleasure that can be brought by reading. This
idea of reinforcement is also reiterated in the blog by Cox, (n.d.)
who states that by learning through repetition which can help people
later in life to learn new skills as well. So by giving children
skills to repeat and reinforce new skills then they can be set for
life and reach their full potential not only in the love of reading
or in whatever they put their mind to.

Tuesday, 13 May 2014

This book provides an
excellent background for library staff and policy makers as they
create services for children and young adults. The primary focus of
the book is provision of services for 6 – 18 year olds, and it
looks at service provision in both school and public libraries. The
book also looks at how school and public libraries, in the same
community, can work together to provide complementary services
through consulting with each other and thus meeting all needs of
users. The book also looks at the different formats of resources that
are available to be used and encourages staff to use these to provide
services as the technological advances in society today will be
continued to be picked by today’s children who will be tomorrows
adults and leaders. By encouraging use of the different technologies
such as ebooks and e audiobooks children can become aware of new
technologies which are used in libraries they can see how libraries
evolve to stay relevant. In this way the young people can pass on the
importance of libraries to future generations. The book also talks
about the different types of reading that young people do be that in
the form of a physical book or other types of reading materials such
as magazines and newspapers or electronic texts such as blog posts,
tweets, Facebook posts, and ebooks. The book states that it is
important to encourage all these different types of reading, in
children, as this is the way that they read and it will help to
encourage a love of reading. While the book is primarily focused on
the UK the ideas and suggestions in the book are relevant for an
international audience as it has sections focussing on the United
States and Australia and people from other places around the world
can adapt the ideas to suit their needs and culture. (Rankin &
Boyd, 2012) The idea of books and technology, particularly e books,
being beneficial is taken up by (Leith, 2011) where the fact that
using such technology is great for children as it encourages
interaction with what they are reading. This is helpful because
children have grown up interacting with the technological world
around them through things such as computer and console games.
Through using interactive e books then the children can take the next
step to the love of reading and enjoying physical books. Through
reading this book I learnt that encouraging reading in whatever
format it comes in is important so that readers can make the step
from one format to another and thus diversify their reading habits.
By encouraging what is seen as simple reading the love of reading
can develop and a new generation of readers will be born.

Leith, S. (2011, October 23). Don’t fear the Reader: how technology
can benefit children’s books. New technology, far from tempting
kids away from books, promises to add a new dimension to reading. The
Observer. London.

Rankin, C., & Boyd, A. (2012).
Library services for children and young people :
challenges and opportunities in the digital age.
London: Facet.

Wednesday, 7 May 2014

This is a website which
brings together a collection of e books for children. The books that
are held in the collection come from all over the world and has
stories in languages from all over the world. Many of the stories
which are within the collection have been translated from one
language to another, so that people speaking different languages can
share stories from other cultures. The website is easy for children
to navigate because it uses images that are easy to see and
understand while reading the books. The home page of the website may
be a little hard for younger children to navigate due to the large
amount of writing however with guidance from and adult or older child
to help them. However as the child becomes familiar with the site
they can learn where to click. The aim of the website for younger
children would be as a shared experience between child and carer.
Older children however can use the site themselves and experience the
joy of stories from their home country and around the world. In fact
all users who use this website can enjoy stories from around the
world. The beauty of this collection of stories is that it allows
users to discover new stories from around the world and through this
learn about unfamiliar cultures. Just by browsing the different
stories that are available users can see what different cultures are
represented which can lead to discussions with others around them
about different cultures. In this way the children who use this
resource can be more aware of the diversity that exists in the world
that we live in. Through this awareness that is developed will allow
the children to be more accepting of other cultures that exist in the
world. Therefore when they come across these other cultures during
their lifetimes they can be more accepting of the people from diverse
cultures and also encourage others to do the same. As the users
continue to become culturally aware through using this resource they
will become aware of different races from a young age and therefore
be able to learn not to discriminate against race. This will mean
that studies like the one by Dulin-Keita, Hannon III, Fernandez, &
Cockerham (2011) will not be necessary or the results will change as
people become more accepting. Through exploring this website I
discovered the range of cultural diversity that exist that is
available for children to explore. Through this resource a range of
traditional and modern stories will assist in creating an
appreciation of diverse cultures. Therefore increasing the acceptance
and equity within all peoples around the world.

Thursday, 1 May 2014

This was a study
conducted in the USA looking at the lists of books that had been
challenged in libraries between the years of 2000 and 2010. In
conducting the study the author looked previous research that had
been conducted with similar topics including one on the difference
between censorhip and selection of books. The librarian use of
selection is positive while not misinterpreting the books to make
them say what is not the intention. On the other hand censors take
words and passages out of the context of the whole work to give the
work a different meaning. An example of this is seen in the Banned
Books Week (2013) the reporter here has spoken to the authors of
frequently challenged books, one of the authors, Jay Ashton, tells of
a case where a school was having a meeting about bannin his book
about teen suicide, Thirteen Reasons Why. A
parent read out a scene out of context. A student then explained to
those at the meeting about the context of the passage and so the book
was allowed to stay. The article also mentions another work
that built upon the selection ideas and said that censoring books
gives them a higher status than they would otherwise have. This is
because through the process of challenging a work the work becomes
canonised through the extra attention given to it. This also states
that due to the number of established classics that frequently appear
on banned book lists contemporary books that are on these lists are
given a greater status than they necessarily deserve.

The study conducted its
research through making a list of the most frequently cited reasons
for books being banned and then through spreadsheets discovered the
number of times each reason was given for each book.
Through the spreadsheets that were made the researchers were able to
determine whether more classics or contemporary books were
challanged, if there was a rise in the number of contemporary books
that had been challenged and the similiraties and differences between
the challenges of contmeporary books and classics. The results were
that 374 contemporary books were and 15 were classic so contemporary
books were challenged more. There were 454 complaints against
contmeporary books taking into account that there were some
challenges for the same books for a different reason the number of
challenges has not gone up. The highest number of challenges for
bothe categories was for being sexually explicit.

From
reading this I learnt that adults particularly parents are very
concerned about what children read and what ideas this may give them.
I also learnt that young people can have knowledge about what is
important to them and teach the adults in their lives about a better
way to look at the world. This is relevant to working with children
and young adults by making me think about what my ideas are about
what is appropriate for children and young adults to be reading. It
is also important to educate their parents, caregivers and teachers
about the importance of young people being able to make informed
decisions about their lives and read a wide variety to expand their
minds.

This
relates to censorship by looking at the reasons different books have
been censored, banned, or challenged and how different books are
viewed over time. It also looks at whether banning actually has the
desired effect or makes them more desireable to the young people.